Midday Sun
by Thinkingaboutnothing
Summary: Twilight, if Edward was human and Bella was the vampire. I know it's been done before. I haven't kept rigidly to the plot of the books.
1. Chapter 1

"Mom, I've got to go." I pulled slightly away from my mother suffocating embrace. Liz Dwyer released me and stood back, brushing my unruly hair back off my forehead.

"You call me every evening, honey." She instructed, locking her emerald eyes with my identical ones.

"I've promised already," I half-smiled, exasperated and touched at once. My gaze darted to my square-faced watch, and I stepped away firmly, swinging my carry on bag onto my shoulder. "I'm going, I'll miss the plane." I pressed a kiss to her cheek, breathing her soft perfume and baking smell. She took my hand for a moment and gripped it. Her new wedding band dug into my palm. "I love you."

"Love you too, Edward. I'll miss you." She sighed a little before dropping my hand. "Say hi to your dad for me?" She tacked on awkwardly, twining a strand of red-gold hair in her fingers.

"I will." I answered, turning away. I glanced back after a few moments to see Liz waving manically, jumping up and down, earning odd looks from passers-by and accidentally bopping one man on the head and knocking his glasses off. I stifled my laughter. Only my mom. I was honestly going to miss her so much. I rounded the corner, still grinning at Mom's antics and reached another section of airport security. The worst section of airport security. I joined the queue, taking off my shoes, jacket, belt, bag and watch and depositing them in a tray. They were pushed through the security scanner. Squaring my shoulders, I faced the metal detector. I launched into my dramatic mental monologue. We meet again, my old foe...

"On you go," A security guard interrupted from behind me, shoving me forward. I stumbled through the archway and held my breath. There was a second of silence. It didn't beep! I considered a victory dance, but my plans were killed before they could live. The machine, with a malicious glee, paused and then:

Beep.

A female security guard leaped out of the seat she'd been dozing in so fast you'd think it had suddenly caught fire.

"I'll strip search him." She volunteered. I shrank back, turning pleading eyes in the security guard who had pushed me.

" It's a mistake!" I begged. "It always does that to me. I'm not carrying anything, I swear. Just let me walk through it again, please."

His mustache twitched, in equal parts moved and amused by my desperation. "Alright. Go ahead."

His colleague looked like she wanted to protest, but he must have outranked her, because she simply huffed and jiggled her way back to her chair, her too-tight uniform displaying all sorts of unflattering angles as she did so. I shuddered. "Thank you," I said fervently to the security guard who had just saved, if not my life, at least my peace of mind. He just gestured to the archway. I marched through it, and thanked what gods there were when it didn't make a peep. I made a beeline for the tray with my stuff, and broke the record for putting shoes, a belt and a jacket on while avoiding the stare of a creepy security guard then escaped to duty-free.

Once I was out of that woman's range of vision, I put my bag down to unzip the front pocket and get my phone out. I had three messages from people at school who had remembered I was leaving this morning. I stood, put my bag on my back, and texted while I walked. I sent one to Mom while I was at it, letting her know I was through security with the usual fuss. I'd barely hit send when my phone buzzed with a reply.

_Remember to eat! You know how cranky you get. Mom xxx. _

I raised my eyebrows. I was seventeen. Cranky was a bit of an overstatement. I just...got upset when I didn't eat. It was totally normal, everyone was weird when they were hungry. I wasn't as bad as the guy in the Snickers ad. Not quite. I scanned for a place to eat. Chocolate cafe place, no...Burger King, no...Italian, didn't feel like it...Subway! Yay!

I stopped dead, embarrassed at having thought that, like a five year old girl the snarky part of my mind commented, and fought the urge to run headlong into the delicious aroma pouring from my favourite place in the world right now. I walked at an almost normal pace, then cheated and ran the last few metres.

"A footlong please," I announced to the guy at the counter. "Toppings." He stated in a dead voice. I assumed he was asking so I began listing. "Olives, the veggie patty, sundried tomatoes, em...that stuff, sorry can't think what it's called, sweetcorn, cheese,"

He stopped in the middle of heaping stuff onto the footlong. "Which cheese?"

I paused. "What kinds are there?" He indicated two types of cheese behind the glass window. I scrutinised them, thinking carefully.

"No rush, pal." He sneered. I frowned at him, then went back to examining the cheeses. The guy was really rude. I wished I'd asked the girl server. Girls were always way more helpful. Women must just be naturally friendlier, I mused. "Gouda." I pointed to the cheese after another minute of rude server guy scowling. He put it on to my footlong, threw me a filthy look and put the footlong in the oven.

A lot of scowling later, I was happily munching on my footlong when my phone buzzed with anothe text. It was from Mom.

_You're probably on the plane now, so I'm saying bye before you take off. Love Mom. Ps did you_ eat?

My wide, shocked eyes inched their way up the phone screen to focus on the displayed time. Shit! I gathered up my phone, bag, jacket and footlong and set off in the direction of boarding. I ate as I ran, and to my dismay dropped a few olives. I skidded to a halt at the second security barrier, and began speed-eating. The girl next to me looked disgusted, and edged away from me. Probably wise. She wouldn't like to get her nice clothes sprayed with Subway.

"Is this the flight to Seattle?" I asked her through a mouthful of sandwich.

"Yes." She muttered, keeping her face averted as she answered. "Cool." I responded happily. Luckily, my subway was finished by the time I got to the front of the queue, so I scrunched the greasy papers up and shoved them into the front pouch of my carry-on. My bag was not included in my airport security allergy, and it made it through various scanning things with grace. I swung the strap over my shoulder and recalled my seat. I thought it was row 12 C. An aisle seat, as it turned out. Some planes had it the other way, where A was the aisle and C was the window. I preferred the aisle. I had long legs, and needed to stretch them on flights. In row 12 seat B was a very friendly businesswoman named Christine. She was really chatty and was going to Seattle to meet the bosses of the HQ of the company she worked for. She had dyed blonde, impeccably flat-ironed hair, skilful make-up that didn't quite hide her wrinkles and an expensive, possibly designer suit. I'd put her in her late thirties/early forties, and she was nice. She reminded me a little of my mom, but she went quiet when I mentioned that to her, then asked how old I was. I told her, and she took out her laptop and worked for about twenty minutes, then slept the rest of the flight. I read Jane Eyre on my ereader. It was a far cry from my usual reading material, but we were studying it in school, so I figured I should make the effort and not just go for the Cliffsnotes. In my opinion, no matter how well it aged, a Gothic romance was a Gothic romance. Now, it was a good Gothic romance, with insights into morality and such, but I switched over to Discworld in some places. That's the beauty of an ereader.

Charlie was there to pick me up at the airport in his cruiser. I caught him in a hug when I spotted him, and he looked surprised and a little uncomfortable. Guess I got my affectionate side from Mom. He helped me with some of my bags. On the forest-lined roads to Forks I couldn't help but notice he kept exactly to the speed limit. Comes from being a cop, I supposed. He was also introverted, and comfortable with long silences, unlike myself. I was making small talk in under ten minutes.

"I've always wondered what the front of these is like," was my comment on the cruiser. He threw me a look.

"You were expecting me to make that joke, huh?" He nodded. I quietened, getting desperate.

"Mom said to say hi." He nodded again. I needed words! 'Hello, son' was all he'd said in practically half an hour! Wasn't his tongue stiff by now?!

"I should get a job while I'm here. Do you know anywhere in Forks I could get a job?" He seemed to be considering that, but I couldn't wait. I had an overwhelming urge to fill the silence. "I'm saving for a car, see. I don't know what kind. I mean, I'd love an S60, but no way I'd afford that, you know? I think maybe - "

Charlie cleared his throat and spoke honest-to-goodness words. I almost wept for joy. Well, that might be a little exaggeration. "I already..well." He paused, looking embarrassed. Don't stop now, Charlie! You're doing so well! I chanted encouragement in my head. Mom was used to me saying this kind of stuff out loud, but I was taking it easy on the newbie parent. No need to scare him. "I already got you a car. As a welcome gift, sorta." He nodded to himself as he said it. My eyes were huge.

"Seriously, Dad? You got me a car? That's epic! You shouldn't have, really. That's amazing! I can't believe it! I probably shouldn't hug you while you're driving, right? It's probably not safe?"

Charlie looked frightened, whether at my outburst or at the thought of me hugging him again. He kept staring out the windshield as he shook his head at me.

"What make is it?" I asked eagerly. He glanced at me. "It's an old Chevy truck. I got it off a friend, real cheap."

"How old?" I wondered. He turned immediately into the driveway of a vaguely familiar house, looking relieved as he did. My gaze zeroed in on a bulbous, rusty red monster of a truck. That must be it. A part of me wistfully pictured a silver Volvo superimposed over the thing, but mostly I was glad Charlie didn't have to drive me places in the cruiser. It really was good of him to buy this for me. I knew he didn't have a lot of cash. My gratitude was 100% genuine when I delivered the promised hug. He stood stiffly through it. He'd get used to me.

My room was...a room. A small one with dark grey duvets and pillow covers, and a rocking chair which had languished in that corner all seventeen years of my life. My clothes all fitted easily in the wardrobe, and I plugged my chargers in at the wall socket, left my phone, watch and reading glasses on the bedside table, and generally deposited my personal effects about. By the time I finished, I had gone one better than lived in, and my room looked messy. I left stuff in the bathroom too. I hadn't had to share in Phoenix, but that house had been bigger. Charlie and I watched ESPN for the rest of the evening and ordered pizza for dinner. It was surprisingly good pizza. I had a vegetarian and Charlie amusingly had a meat-lover's. I didn't think about my first day at Forks High at all, and slept untroubled by dreams or nightmares.


	2. Chapter 2

I saw a parking spot the minute I entered the lot, and went for it. The engine was making an embarrassingly loud noise, but I was acting nonchalant. Besides, this was a high school. No one was going to have a decent car. I cut the engine the second I was in the spot, and grinned triumphantly to myself. My grin faded as I noticed a car backing away from the spot I'd taken, and turning to go in search of another spot. True to cliche, not just any car. The silver S60 that drove through my daydreams. One of the most amazing cars in the known universe. I got out of the Monster/Thing (I was conflicted as far as nicknames went) and glared at it.

"You are not worthy." I told it. "You have taken a parking space destined for a greater vehicle than you."

"What?" It responded in a voice much higher-pitched than I would have expected, if I had been expecting it to speak. I stumbled back in shock, and bumped into a mop of curly hair.

"Are you alright?" The curly mop asked in the high-pitched voice I'd just heard. I wasn't sure whether to be relieved my truck wasn't actually speaking to me or concerned that a curly mop of hair was walking and talking on its own. "I'm Jessica." The mop introduced itself.

I stepped back a little and noted with definite relief that the mop was attached to a very short person with disproportionately large boobs. Or maybe that was just because she was sticking them out, in a sadly obvious way. "I'm Edward." I told her. She blinked. "Edward Masen? The police chief's son?"

I nodded, a mannerism I now associated with Charlie after painful attempts at conversation during the ad breaks yesterday. "Oh," she said. "I didn't think you'd be hot!"

I'm not the kind of person who is frequently lost for words, but I could not think of a way to respond without potentially offending little Jess. I decided to ignore it and move swiftly on.

"I'm going to the office now. For my schedule and stuff." I said. She beamed. "I'll take you to the office. It's this way!"

Glad to have sidestepped the mine, I followed her across the parking lot to a small, solitary building at the edge of an intruding vein of forest. Forks High School consisted of many of these separate grey buildings, grouped together by a ring of vegetation. I realised I'd probably have to cross the carpark and go outside to get to different classrooms. I groaned internally, and cursed the architects for idiots. Would a little foresight have hurt that much? We were in possibly the rainiest place in the continental US. Even now, the sky was swarmed with pregnant grey clouds. I sighed. My raincoat didn't have a hood. Jessica was a pleasant, if mind-numbing, person. She nattered the entire way to the office and through my conversation with the exceedingly helpful Mrs Cope and then followed me to my first class before she realised she had to be somewhere else. I was a talkative person, but I had an idea of my audience. Jessica just blurted whatever she was thinking, whether her listeners were interested or not. I had a feeling not was more common. English with Mr Bertie was my first class. Irritatingly enough, this class was not studying Wuthering Heights at the moment, but The Bell Jar, by Slyvia Plath. I actually had read The Bell Jar, and preferred it to Wuthering Heights, but I was annoyed I had wasted my time yesterday. Maybe Mr Bertie would read Wuthering Heights later in the year. A blonde girl named Lauren offered to show me where my next class was, and I gratefully accepted. Mrs Cope had given me a map, but I thought I'd be self-conscious if I had to stop and look for my class when everyone else knew where they were going. I was crossing my fingers I wouldn't have to use it. Jessica met Lauren and I in the parking lot, and wondered why I hadn't waited for her to take me to my class. Lauren answered that for me.

"You're not the only person who knows her way around the school, Jess."

"I never said that Lauren, but Edward and I are friends, so maybe he wanted me to bring him to class."

"Eddie's my friend too, Jess." I couldn't help wincing at this. "It's Edward." I said loudly. "I don't like Eddie or Ed or Ned or any abbreviations." I thought that was clear enough. Lauren looked put out and Jessica looked delighted.

I didn't pay strict attention in Calculus, because the unit was one I'd covered already in Phoenix. I flipped ahead through the book, and made sure Mr Varner wasn't watching me as I tried to decipher the next chapter. The guy sitting next to me was called Mike Newton, and we struck up a conversation on the way to the cafeteria. I liked him immediately. He was funny and didn't take himself too seriously, or monopolise a conversation the way some Forksians did. He'd lived in California until he was ten, so we bantered a bit about the dreadful Forks weather. I sat with his group of friends, which included my buddies Jess and Lauren, Mike's friends Tyler, Eric and Ben and a shy, pretty girl named Angela. Everyone seemed sound, though Ben and Angela didn't say much. We were all laughing at Eric's impression of some teacher named Mr Banner, who I hadn't met yet, when Mike suddenly stopped and stared avidly at something over my shoulder. I followed suit and saw the most beautiful girl I had seen in my life walking to a cafeteria table. She was tall, with naturally blonde hair and a runway-worthy figure. She also had a gargantuan, muscled guy who looked like a wrestler walking behind her with his arm possessively over her shoulders. Self-preservation took over and I cut off my staring abruptly, switching my gaze to a second impossibly gorgeous couple. She was tiny and delicate, with cute, short dark hair. She was utterly graceful, practically dancing to her seat. He wasn't a built as the huge guy, but was somehow more dangerous. His blond hair waved around his face and he held the tiny girl's hand tightly in his. The sound of the door closing drew my attention away from them and the final member of their group made her way to their table. Blonde lost first place on the list of most beautiful girls I'd ever seen. This girl was slightly shorter than average, though she would still be tall next to the little dark-haired one. I imagined the top of her head would come to just under my chin. Her full, glossy mahogany curls tumbled to her elbows, framing her pale, elfin face. Her lips were plump and pink as though they'd just been bitten. Her dark eyes were huge, seeming to take up most of her face. I couldn't stop staring at them until she turned away, breaking the spell. Mike and I turned back to the table at the same time.

"Who is _she_?" I asked, my voice embarrassingly rough. Mike shook his head, as if to clear water from his ears, and I was glad that at least there were two of us making fools of ourselves.

"That's Bella Cullen." He sighed. There was no doubt which he was referring to. Jessica took over, dishing out the gossip. "The big one is Emmett, and the little one is Alice. The blonds are the Hales, Rosalie and Jasper. They're all Doctor Cullen's foster kids."

"They're adopted?" I asked, and mentally high-fived myself for making a coherent remark. "Yeah, Doctor Cullen and his wife are way too young to have teenage kids. They're barely thirty." Jessica said. I sneaked a glance at their table.

"Are they...together?" I struggled to express my surprise that these were siblings. Jessica looked like a car with cream.

"Yes! Jasper and Alice are together," she used my word. "And so are Emmett and Rosalie."

I glanced over again. None of them had noticed they were being talked about, though I supposed are table was too far for them to eavesdrop. I thought they would have seen the ogling. "But not Bella?" There was something odd about the way I pronounced her name. Mike frowned over at me.

"No." Jess admitted. "But she doesn't date. All the guys here ask her out, though I don't see why she's kinda plain if you ask me - "

Jealous much? I bit my tongue to keep from saying it aloud.

" - but she turns them all down." I was disappointed at that, but I knew she was out of my league anyway. "Except for me!" Mike suddenly announced, his tone joking. This provoked a chorus of 'Yeah, right' from the table, and everyone started laughing again.

"Mike insists he's 'wearing her down' with his constant pestering," Angela giggled, her cheeks turning prettily pink. I grinned at her and she blushed harder. I put all thoughts of the unattainable Bella Cullen out of my head for the rest of lunch.

Unfortunately, when I walked into the Biology classroom with Angela, the seat next to her was occupied. In fact, all the seats were occupied except one third from the front in the middle row, situated next to the seat in which Bella Cullen lounged. She had one arm lazily stretched across her desk, and the other supporting her chin. Her posture was entirely relaxed, until I started walking towards the seat. Then her whole body stiffened, and she pulled herself upright, her hands fisting at the edge of the desk. She glared at me as I approached, her face set in hostile lines. Bewildered, I hesitantly took my seat.

"I'm Edward Masen." I said quietly. She didn't even look at me, and her lips pressed tighter together. I swallowed. Why was she so furious? She didn't even know me. I searched for an explanation, and slowly, one presented itself. She must have seen me gawking at her at lunch, and was nervous of me. My face heated with painful humiliation. She looked so innocent and vulnerable, and was probably shy. I'd frightened her with my weird staring. She probably thought she'd gained a stalker. I tried frantically to find a way to deny this and apologise, but everything I thought of would just make me sound more like a stalker. It was only with incredible restraint I managed to refrain from bashing my head off the desk for the rest of that class. Once the bell rang, she hightailed it out of there like the classroom was on fire. I trudged after her, downcast. Mike caught up with me at the door.

"What was up with Bella Cullen?" He looked honestly curious and a little confused. I hung my head.

"She thinks I'm stalking her." I confessed. His eyebrows shot up. "What?"

I sighed. "She saw me staring at her in the cafeteria, and she's creeped out. She wouldn't even look at me for that entire class!" The urge to bash my head off something reared its head again as I narrated the disaster to Mike. He looked sympathetic, but suspiciously cheerful. "That's too bad, man. Hey, you have Gym now, right?"

"Yeah." I was picturing Bella's angry glare. It was surprisingly intimidating, for a girl that size. She probably gets a lot of practise with her older brothers.

"We can be partners!" Mike exclaimed. "You can play badminton, right?"

"Sure." I was pretty good at sports in general. Mike and I won all four games, but I was sort of vacant for the rest of the day. I kept going over that disaster of a Biology class. I would have to apologise the next time I saw Bella Cullen. Even if she wouldn't listen, even if my explanation was stupid, I couldn't leave things the way they were. I brainstormed apologies the whole drive home, steering clear of anything that sounded too much like an excuse. I had been out of line, and I was going to own up to it.

Charlie and I ordered pizza again, after I ransacked the kitchen and came up with nothing but frozen fish. I was absorbed with my thoughts, and he seemed thankful I was quieter. I went to bed early, as soon as I'd finished studying, but I didn't fall asleep until late. My thoughts were still spinning with images of Bella's hostile, almost warning glare.


End file.
